DETROIT, United States (AFP) - Rats or lead poisoning. When it comes to the threats from the broken down house next door, Dorothy Bates isn't sure which is worse.

"When it's lightening and thundering you can hear the bricks just falling," the 40-year-old nurse said as she looked at the smashed windows and garbage-strewn porch. "If you call and ask (the city) about it they say they don't have the funds to tear it down."

There are more than 12,000 abandoned homes in the Detroit area, a byproduct of decades of layoffs at the city's auto plants and white flight to the suburbs. And despite scores of attempts by government and civic leaders to set the city straight, the automobile capitol of the world seems trapped in a vicious cycle of urban decay.

Detroit has lost more than half its population since its heyday in the 1950's. The people who remain are mostly black -- 83 percent -- and mostly working class, with 30 percent of the population living below the poverty line according to the US
Census Bureau.

The schools are bad. The roads are full of potholes. Crime is high and so are taxes. The city is in a budget crisis so deep it could end up being run by the state.

And it just got knocked off the list of the nation's ten largest cities.

"Detroit has become an icon of what's considered urban decline," said June Thomas, a professor of urban and regional planning at Michigan State University.

"The issue is not just getting people in the city. It's getting people in the city who can become property owners and stay property owners and pay taxes."

Perhaps the biggest challenge to luring the middle class from the area's swank suburbs is overcoming racial tensions, said Stephen Vogel, dean of the school of architecture at University of Detroit Mercy.

"Suburbanites are taking the bodies of their relatives out of cemeteries because they're afraid to come to the city," Vogel said. "There are about 400 to 500 hundred (being moved) a year which shows you the depth of racism and fear."

Most American cities have experienced a shift towards the suburbs.

What made Detroit's experience so stark was the lack of regional planning and the ease with which developments were able to incorporate into new cities in order to avoid sharing their tax revenue with the city, said Margaret Dewar, a professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Michigan.

The fleeing businesses and homeowners left behind about 36 square miles (58 square kilometers) of vacant land. That's roughly the size of San Francisco and about a quarter of Detroit's total land mass.

While a decision by General Motors to build its new headquarters smack in the middle of downtown has helped lure young professionals and spark redevelopment in some of the more desirable neighborhoods, there is little hope the vacant land will be filled any time soon.

In his state of the city address, embattled mayor Kwame Kilpatrick said even if 10,000 new homes were built every year for the next 15 years "we wouldn't fill up our city."

And Detroit is still losing about 10,000 people every year.

One solution Vogel has proposed is to turn swaths of the city into farmland. In the four years since his students initiated a pilot project dozens of community gardens and small farms have popped up.

But first the city has to get rid of the crumbling buildings that haunt the streets, luring criminals, arsonists and wild animals and creating a general sense of hopelessness.

"It's partly a resource issue and it's partly a bureaucracy issue," said Eric Dueweke, the community partnership manager at the University of Michigan's College of Architecture and Urban Planning.

"It takes them forever to find the proper owners of the properties and serve them with the proper paperwork," he said. "They're tearing them down at the rate of 1,500 or 2,000 a year, so they're really not cutting into the backlog in any significant way because that's how many are coming on stream."

Dorothy Bates has been waiting three years for the crumbling house next door to be torn down. There are nine more on her short block along with several vacant lots that are overgrown with weeds.

Bates does her best to keep her five children away from the rat nests, but the lead creeping out of crumbling bricks and peeling paint drifts in through her windows.

The most frustrating part of it, says her neighbor Larry, is that so many of the abandoned houses could be repaired. The foundations are solid. The buildings are beautiful. Or at least, they were once.

08-17-2005, 08:38 PM

foretaz

Re: Seems to be a good market for real estate if Dale chooses Detroit

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: ur bad

08-17-2005, 08:42 PM

Shade

Re: Seems to be a good market for real estate if Dale chooses Detroit

:tongue:

08-17-2005, 08:45 PM

Shade

Re: Seems to be a good market for real estate if Dale chooses Detroit

Quote:

The schools are bad. The roads are full of potholes. Crime is high and so are taxes. The city is in a budget crisis so deep it could end up being run by the state.

Maybe we can argue with Dale that, if Detroit offers him more $$$, he'll have to pay more in taxes, so it really wouldn't be worth his while. :innocent:

Btw, I guess Spree isn't too concerned about crime and potholes, as long as he has enough $$$ to feed his family. :innocent:

08-17-2005, 08:47 PM

BabbleOn

Re: Seems to be a good market for real estate if Dale chooses Detroit

Pistons = 3 World Championships

Pacers = 0 World Championships

jackass.

08-17-2005, 08:49 PM

SjA3837

Re: Seems to be a good market for real estate if Dale chooses Detroit

Quote:

Originally Posted by BabbleOn

Pistons = 3 World Championships

Pacers = 0 World Championships

jackass.

And that has what to do with the condition of the city?

08-17-2005, 08:49 PM

McClintic Sphere

Re: Seems to be a good market for real estate if Dale chooses Detroit

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shade

Maybe we can argue with Dale that, if Detroit offers him more $$$, he'll have to pay more in taxes, so it really wouldn't be worth his while. :innocent:

Btw, I guess Spree isn't too concerned about crime and potholes, as long as he has enough $$$ to feed his family. :innocent:

The article would suggest that every member of both of their extended family's could get a fixer upper of their own on a dime.

since this thread is obvious provokative shout box meterial anyway, I don't see how he was out of line.

I mean, if we want to be toddlers and insult each other's homes, we can do that. But that's never been what PD was about.

Personally, I think it takes a real lack of character to post this here and not on the shout box, wher eit obviously belongs.

08-17-2005, 08:52 PM

Shade

Re: Seems to be a good market for real estate if Dale chooses Detroit

Quote:

Originally Posted by BabbleOn

Pistons = 3 NBA World Championships

Pacers = 3 ABA World Championships

jackass.

Fixed. :tongue:

08-17-2005, 08:54 PM

Shade

Re: Seems to be a good market for real estate if Dale chooses Detroit

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kstat

since this thread is obvious provokative shout box meterial anyway, I don't see how he was out of line.

I agree that it belongs in the Shout Box, so it's on it's way there.

I'll be watching this closely.

08-17-2005, 08:54 PM

Hicks

Re: Seems to be a good market for real estate if Dale chooses Detroit

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kstat

since this thread is obvious provokative shout box meterial anyway, I don't see how he was out of line.

When will you learn that responding with equal or greater offense because of a previous offense is NOT justification for anything.

08-17-2005, 08:55 PM

Kstat

Re: Seems to be a good market for real estate if Dale chooses Detroit

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr. Cox

When will you learn that responding with equal or greater offense because of a previous offense is NOT justification for anything.

No, but I didn't see anybody else doing something about it.

Not really my way, but some people fight fire with fire.

08-17-2005, 08:58 PM

Shade

Re: Seems to be a good market for real estate if Dale chooses Detroit

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kstat

No, but I didn't see anybody else doing something about it.

Not really my way, but some people fight fire with fire.

Do what?

If you have issue with the article, take it up with the article's writer.

I'm sure if there were a similar article about Indiana, it would be posted here as well.

08-17-2005, 09:00 PM

Kstat

Re: Seems to be a good market for real estate if Dale chooses Detroit

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shade

Do what?

If you have issue with the article, take it up with the article's writer.

I'm sure if there were a similar article about Indiana, it would be posted here as well.

Well, Hicks made the point that what he posted was wrong, for some reason. I guess cause it was meant to be insulting.

Yet nobody seemed to take issue with the insulting premise of this thread, until BabbleOn decided to fight fire with fire. If you're not going to critisize the first insult, don't critisize the second one.

And Shade, while you are correct that a thread denigrating Indiana would also have been moved here, you have to admit that someone that started such a thread in the main forum would probably have been seriously warned at best. There's no other point for a thread like this other than to irritate other people. I fully realize this is an Indiana forum at heart, just trying to explain to you why BabbleOn's reaction should have been expected.

Either way, I don't like making fun of other people's homes. It's by far the easiest way to start a fight that neither side is going to win.

08-17-2005, 09:07 PM

Shade

Re: Seems to be a good market for real estate if Dale chooses Detroit

Personally, I thought it was a light-hearted poke more than anything, but since nothing more good can come from this, and it's obviously struck a nerve with our resident Detroiters, I'm gonna close it.

Unless Dale signs with Detroit. Then it's free game. :devil: ;)

08-17-2005, 09:21 PM

BabbleOn

Detroit

Listen, I can laugh off a lot of things. But I'm tired of the Detroit punchline. I'm tired of people punching below the belt, people who don't understand/don't care about the complexities of the Detroit Metro area. It's not some fictional place that we can all make fun of together, and it's not a past time like basketball. Detroit is home to a lot of people, and it means a lot to many of those who live around it. I lot of people love it, many others hate it. We're all effected by what happens there.

Sometimes I hate Detroit. I'm sick to my stomach when I see the blight, homeless, trash, etc, or when I hear about the budget problems and the school problems. But that's just the thing: these problems are real, and real people are affected by them every day around here. It's not a g-damn joke for a Pacers chat forum.

So hate the Pistons because they've been better than the Pacers, and hate them for [possibly] signing D. Davis, and hate them for the brawl. But leave the g-damn city out of your basketball discussion, please.

Detroit is also wonderful, rich with history and culture. If people continue to perpetuate only the bad, then Detroit will never fully recover. Because who wants to visit, work or live in a wretched city?

I'm sorry. I can laugh at myself, usually. And I can laugh about Detroit. Just not in this situation.

08-17-2005, 09:31 PM

denyfizle

Re: Detroit

Yes that previous thread was tasteless even if it was meant to be a lighthearted joke. But that thread has already been closed so I guess we all learned a valuable lesson today. It's ok to insult a state if it pokes fun on rednecks and corn but once you mention rats, boy you're in trouble! I guess one should assume they expect hicks to be less sensitive. :sarcasm: I am noticing a trend. Why are Pistons fans so hypersensitive? This is how beer cups get tossed. Laugh it off, if you can't, then just leave it alone. Lighten up, it's more about the intent not the content. The poster elxplained his side already.

08-17-2005, 09:37 PM

Hicks

Re: Seems to be a good market for real estate if Dale chooses Detroit

I don't think it's fair to McClinctic Sphere to outright close it, so I'm going to re-open it; he didn't mean it the way it's being taken; it was as Shade said a light poke at best, and then a fit was thrown in retaliation. That's why I called out the "2nd", not the "1st" offense. The first was interpretted that way when it wasn't meant to be, the second was obvious.

08-17-2005, 09:38 PM

McClintic Sphere

Re: Detroit

Quote:

Originally Posted by BabbleOn

Listen, I can laugh off a lot of things. But I'm tired of the Detroit punchline.
I'm sorry. I can laugh at myself, usually. And I can laugh about Detroit. Just not in this situation.

You do realize that you are on the Pacer's Digest forum however, whereby the article might be taken as a light hearted shot at our bitter rival. Hey, I didn't make up this article to insult anyone. It is a legitimate piece of journalism which I tied in with the prospect of Dale leaving in the middle of the most dead part of the offseason. If I went on to a Freep.com board or whatever the main Piston unmonitored forum is and posted this, then I think you would have a much more sympathetic complaint. I thought maybe Pacer's fans who come here to discuss Pacer's related topics might get some odd enjoyment out of it plus it was genuinely informative and well written. I didn't pick on any individual or try to provoke a pissing match, so lighten up.

08-17-2005, 09:44 PM

BabbleOn

Re: Detroit

Quote:

Originally Posted by McClintic Sphere

You do realize that you are on the Pacer's Digest forum however, whereby the article might be taken as a light hearted shot at our bitter rival. Hey, I didn't make up this article to insult anyone. It is a legitimate piece of journalism which I tied in with the prospect of Dale leaving in the middle of the most dead part of the offseason. If I went on to a Freep.com board or whatever the main Piston unmonitored forum is and posted this, then I think you would have a much more sympathetic complaint. I thought maybe Pacer's fans who come here to discuss Pacer's related topics might get some odd enjoyment out of it plus it was genuinely informative and well written. I didn't pick on any individual or try to provoke a pissing match, so lighten up.

Sorry I messed your joke up.

08-17-2005, 09:45 PM

Pacers#1Fan

Re: Seems to be a good market for real estate if Dale chooses Detroit

Quote:

Originally Posted by BabbleOn

Pistons = 3 World Championships

Pacers = 0 World Championships

jackass.

Do you realy want to start another argument about Pacers and Detriot on a Pacers website. Detriot is one of the worst cities in the U.S.

08-17-2005, 09:48 PM

Hicks

Re: Seems to be a good market for real estate if Dale chooses Detroit

I think what the Pistons fans here need to keep in mind, is that while this is an NBA site, it's 2nd to being a Pacers site, and like it or not Pacers fans can make more of these kinds of posts and get away with it than an outsider can because this is our home, not yours, speaking in terms of who we root for and what this site was built for. I try hard to keep it welcoming to all who want to talk, but at the end of the day the Indiana fans are going to get some privilages in ways outsiders can't, because it's a shrine for the Pacers 1st before being a general NBA talk board. So while I'm not gonna let it sink to anything ridiculous, a Pacer fan is going to be allowed to make some light or modest jabs that a fan of another team won't because we are Pacers-biased.